Jan. 2022; The Woman on the Metro

“You have bum breath.” “Shut up you willy-head.” “No, you’re the piss pot, you smell like piss all day long.” Aaah, the sweet reminiscences of youth. School life as an under-10 in South London is both a precious and perilous mix. Some days it felt like a scene from the much adored Stephen King movie Stand by Me, and some days it felt like you were literally hiding and running for your life, escaping the monstrous beatings of the “big boys,” who wanted to kick you in the nuts and steal your lunch money. When we look back, it’s easy to remember the good and overlook the bad. But, one undeniable thing that nobody can ever easily erase from memory, is that kids can be savagely cruel. If there’s one stain on the shirt, one shoe with a hole in, one publicly known home life problem, one tiny chink in the armour, then those little bastards will go to town on it. Straight for the throat, no holds barred and no punches pulled. Your mums overweight? Your brother went to jail? Your sister works in the chip shop? All fair game for the vicious and unending slanderous insults that you, as a child, have to live through for weeks, days, sometimes years. There’s an old saying that prattles on, going “school days are the best days of your life.” I call that absolute horseshit. I hated school. Loathed it. Detested every moment there. The ridiculous lessons that would never prove useful (European history never landed anybody a job except European history teacher.) The food that nowadays would be illegal to feed to livestock. The morning assemblies singing a prayer and trying not to fall asleep. The bullies. Oh yes, we’ve all encountered them. Whether physical, mental or just verbal, the torment of bullies has caused hundreds of millions of people pure, torturous suffering, for sometimes years on end. People have committed suicide because of bullying. What was the worst insult you ever got called? Elephant arse? Pizza face? Scummy pauper? How about… woman?

This weeks Sunday Scribble was actually meant to be a good old dig at Shenzhen fashions (as if you should ever put those two words together in the same sentence) but, something came to light that I just couldn’t not talk about. The video of the foreign guy and the lady on the metro. Yeh, that video. What an absolute car crash of a day that was for her. Wouldn’t it be nice when, just sometimes, destiny somehow steps in and let’s you avoid having a really bad day. You wake up in the morning and work has been cancelled for some reason, maybe a fire in the building or something. You get to laze around in your pyjamas all day at home, and never have to face what might possibly have happened that day. But no, no such luck for this lady. We only get to see a few delightful moments of her in action, but it’s not good. It definitely didn’t win her any admirers. It’s mentioned that the lady pushed and then kicked the foreign guy, but for reasons unknown. Then we see them at it, her barking at him like an annoying dog, and him somehow managing to (mostly) keep his cool. And this guy is pretty smart in there. He never uses any racial or national slur, and he slyly mentions how his experience of Chinese people is all positive, except for her. Clever move, dude. But in amongst all this, which we unfortunately don’t get to witness the conclusion of, she says something that beggars belief.

Now I know in those heated moments, when you’re angry and blood is boiling and you’re losing your temper, we all say things we later regret. We use insults or personal attacks that we just can’t take back, no matter how much we want to, and that the person they are aimed at may never be able to forget them, or truly forgive us for saying them. But, when the most hurtful and abusive insult you can aim at someone is to call them your own sex, you clearly have serious mental issues. Now, perhaps I’m thinking too much about this, or maybe I’m not. But there’s two very poignant take-aways I got from this video-spectacular. One is that an education clearly does not make you an intelligent person. And secondly, that quite possibly, some women truly do not want, or expect, equality.

So lets start with this. Education. Now one thing I’ve learned in my time here, is that education, your level of education, and more importantly where you studied, is how many people rate you on their own personal measuring-stick of success-slash-humanity. In other countries it’s far less so. I’m not sure I’ve ever overheard a conversation in the UK where someone asks “where did you go to university,” like it’s held as some kind of personal reflection of intelligence. But in China, where you studied seems to be far more important than what you studeid. Getting a C+ in philosophy from Tsingtao university is considered vastly superior than say, a PhD in animal sciences from Shenzhen uni. And the worrying thing is, that most people correlate education with intelligence. Nope. No. Absolutely incorrect. Couldn’t be further from the truth. 

A dear lady I know left school (middle school I believe) and went straight into the workforce. After some time she decided it was time to improve herself, and she dived into books and learning with a ferocious appetite. She now reads well over 50 books per year (She told me she once read over 100 books in a year) on subjects like religion, economy and finance, history, science and much, much more. She can hold an intelligent conversation with you about pretty much anything, and if she doesn’t know much about it, she’ll openly admit it. She won’t cover up with bullshit. And she is, without a doubt, quite possibly the most intelligent person I’ve ever met. Now it’s not purely because she has the highest IQ I’ve ever known, no. I’ve met high IQ people who could barely string a sentence together. It’s because she has reasoning, understanding, empathy, and she can actually open her mind to accept other standpoints and opinions. She can communicate. She is keen to learn, and she is able to add new information and views to her own existing mindset, and learn from them. Now she wouldn’t take-in the opinions of an idiot and be fascinated with them, far from it. But she would at least listen to them, and deduce why they thought that way. Now that’s intelligence. That’s wisdom. And not only that, but she is also one of the sweetest, warmest, kindest and well mannered people you’ve ever met, and she’s an exemplary mother, too.

And let’s take the other side. I’ve known dozens of people, damn hundreds, with a degree in whatever, and they are dumb as rocks. Not only dumb, but boring. And prejudiced, and uninformed. And yet bizarrely, these are the people who are the most opinionated. It seems like the most intelligent souls on this planet know exactly when to keep their mouth shut, something the lower-level lifeforms here fail to do. Some morons just cannot stop talking. Hence, the lady on the metro. Now clearly she is an educated lady. She speaks with a very good grasp of a second language, and studying any second language to that level takes time, patience, and a certain amount of intelligence. But for her, clearly not much. When I heard her say to him “and you are a woman!” I quite literally gasped with disbelief. Calling him a woman was meant as an insult?! From a woman?! Is she intentionally trying to infuriate half the country?

To my hampered understanding, I figure she meant “woman” to him as being weak? Nonsensical? Overly emotional? Rude? A lesser citizen? There’s nothing positive I can ascertain from what she meant in this moment of anger. If someone was yelling insults at me and called me a woman, I’d say thank you! To be a working woman in China means you are proud, independent, hard working and disciplined. Nothing negative about that to me. But what caught my attention most about this ridiculous outburst, is something I’ve noticed people do when they are really losing their end of an argument; They show their true colours, and they say exactly what they really feel. Now I don’t mean saying “you’ve put on too much weight” or some physical thing that you wished you never said, no, something far more than that. Your own beliefs and deep rooted feelings can often fly out in those moments. Working in London pubs for so many years, several times I’ve seen things get out of hand, several drinks have been had and a fight is brewing, and some fired-up white guy will reveal his true self and drop the N-word. In usual conversation he might never say this, but at that moment, out it flies. And that’s not some erratic word just accidentally spluttered out, that’s how he truly sees that guy. As a nigger. And in that moment, it’s not meant as an insult. That’s his mindset. This person is a lesser being. So, when this lady blurted out “you are a woman,” is that what she truly feels? Women are, in some way, lesser beings? Second class citizens?

The subject of equality has been a hot potato for years upon years now, and thankfully it seems to be slowly making progress here. And I do mean slowly. But there’s still a long way to go. Over the last few years I’ve read several times about female comedians being persecuted for being “outspoken,” “unfeminine” and “man haters.” And guess who by? Insecure, nervous, threatened, sexist men. If the men these comedians were targeting (and let’s say that again, they are comedians; they are saying things to make people laugh) had any sense of self confidence, they wouldn’t be offended in the slightest way by such remarks. They are saying jokes. But, these men are threatened by them because they bloody well know it’s the truth. Women are treated with prejudice here. Under 30, single, attractive and successful? “She must be a lesbian or some kind of bitch princess.” Over 30, unmarried, attractive and successful? “She’s an unwanted cast-off spinster. There must be something wrong with her.” Young, pretty, quiet and stupid? “Oh she’s just perfect, I don’t feel threatened by her, her salary, her independence or her intelligence. Now, get busy looking after the house and make some babies, listen to my mother, and make sure dinner is on the table every night.” Men. Wake up. This is not 1940.

But then Metro lady comes along, and make it blaringly obvious it’s not just a segment of men who clearly don’t want or expect equality. There’s some women, too. Perhaps she was brought up in an environment where she was spoken to in such a way, so much so in that it stuck in her mind as somehow correct. But whatever triggered that deep emotional response in her, it’s frightening. For decades now, women have shed blood, sweat and tears to fight for some level of equality here, to simply level the playing field, something that is absolutely unquestionable in many other countries. But here, this big mouth crusader shows us all how some ladies still think, what womens position is, and should be; lesser than men. And this is truly upsetting.

Now I may have deliberated on this too much. Maybe I’m over-thinking things. I do that sometimes. But maybe I’m not. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, these virus times are really bringing people to boiling temperature, tempers are frayed, and true colours are being shown. And as a word of warning to my dear foreign readers, let this also be a lesson to you. This guy showed restraint and wits when it could have been all too easy to drop down to her level and start the xenophobic insults too. He kept his head, and thanks to that, he probably kept his job. (Do you actually think the lady on the metro lost her job over such blatant racism?) We cannot forget that as guests in China, we are also representatives of all foreigners here. And as hard as it is to swallow, sometimes we are not treated fairly. That idiot guy who was swearing and shouting at the health care workers lost his job, and he’s probably finished in China now. Nobody would employ him after that ridiculous outburst, no matter how much he apologized. Keep that in mind. And when someone treats you like crap, keep your cool. Walk away. There are times here that things really upset or anger me, especially about the treatment of animals here. But I would never say “Chinese people are inhumane to animals,” because it’s simply not true. I’d say “some people are inhumane to animals.” Which is unfortunately true the world over. Watch your mouth, as I’ve learned to watch mine. Don’t give anybody an excuse to create trouble. And be wary of angry ladies on the metro. ;)

I know some people may not agree with my thoughts and observations in this weeks Sunday Scribble, and that’s perfectly fine. This is my thing, if you think my ideas and opinions are all rubbish then please, go ahead and write your own blog and tell me why. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. As always I thank my dear readers for their support and feedback. The Sunday Scribble is just my way of getting it out. I do hope you all have your own way of doing just the same. And coincidentally, today, January 23rd, is my birthday. So by the time you read this I’ll probably already have had several glasses of wine, and be quietly weeping inside at the thought of being yet another year closer to 50. So, cheers to that, and cheers to you, dear reader. Wishing you a lovely week ahead.

P.S; And if, by any chance, you’d like to show a small amount of appreciation for the Sunday Scribble (and to simultaneously pay into the karma bank) please donate a little to a trusted animal charity of your choice. Everyone who knows me also knows how much I care about animals and animal welfare. Thank you for your kindness. Karma is smiling down on you.